CCM Coaching Tip #22: Drop Half Of Your Imaging TODAY

by Tommy Kramer, KramerMedia.net

Yes, the Title is right. It's my proposal to any P. D. that you drop half of your Imaging NOW, and give the jocks more opportunities to DO SOMETHING.

First of all, they'll develop faster. As an Air Talent, you've got to have opportunities - along with permission to try, and permission to fail. Draw "danger" lines clearly for the jocks, of course, so they don't step over the boundaries of good taste. But remember that WE LEARN BY DOING, not by NOT doing. No one ever got a hit for the Yankees by sending a prerecorded message up to the plate.

Plus, as radio moves further forward into the digital age, and won't depend on transmitters, towers, and repeaters to deliver its product, you'd better have some Personality. And those "the right song, at just the right time" so-called "Imaging" pieces AREN'T IT. (Especially lines like that, which you can't possibly know to be true.)

Stop talking about yourselves every other song (or sometimes, even more often), and let an actual human being be present most of the time.

Sounding automated isn't a good idea. After all, that's what led radio down the "nothing's going on here; move along..." path a long time ago. Sounding like you're right here, right now - even if it's just a simple song intro delivered with some degree of emotional investment - will be MUCH more effective.

Your Imaging or plain vanilla I. D.'s don't make people fans of the radio station; your Personalities do.